A Memory
I woke up with a start – it was so early. Who was calling before 6am?
Marine Matt answered the phone, jumped out of bed and immediately turned on the television. No words were spoken on his behalf.
There is was. At first I couldn’t, in my half-slumber, comprehend what it was. Smoke was billowing out of a building. I scrambled out of bed to get a closer look and turn up the volume. Matt was already on the phone to someone. I was listening to the reporter. A plane had flown into the World Trade Center? I still didn’t understand. How does a plane hit a building? It was chaos. People running, staring, screaming, pointing.
Within minutes we saw it. It was a second one. We watched, helpless and terrified. It wasn’t really happening. It couldn’t be. I felt the blood drain from my face and a nauseous feeling in my stomach. Matt yelled something – I think – I couldn’t hear him really, with all of my senses magnetized to what was appearing before me, 3,000 miles away, on a television. We both slumped onto the ground beside the bed. We stayed there for a while – I remember sobbing, feeling this overwhelming sense of sadness knowing what we had just witnessed. There was so much smoke. The looks on the people’s faces – ones coming out of the buildings, ones going into the buildings, ones on the ground looking up – always up. Did they know, in those moments, that it was going to be the last time they would look upwards and see the broken jewel?
I must have sat there for a while, because when I reached for Matt, I realized that he was actually standing on the other side of me now. I looked up –I saw panic. I think I knew then, that nothing would be the same.
A lot of people were talking on the television. The chaos on the streets had invaded the television screens. To this day, I don’t remember what they were saying or even who was saying what. Something about more planes. It was the images. But then they were talking louder. There was movement on the television. Where were they now? There’s another building. More smoke. Another gaping hole. What is that? “Dear God, it’s D.C. “ Where was Matt? How was this happening? “Those people. All those people.” I heard my own voice. Matt was standing beside me. This time he was fully dressed in his fatigues. I had seen him in those almost every other day, but, it wasn’t until that morning that I really saw him.
My phone rings. It’s my Mom. Was I awake? Did I have my tv on? I tell her I’m leaving San Diego and heading back up to LA for work. I’ll call her when I get to work. I tell her I love her and hang up. Never before had I so desperately wanted to be with her.
I turn around. Someone is screaming on the television. Something is crumpling into an enormous plume of dust. It can’t be the building. Buildings don’t just fall. Who is that yelling? It’s me. It took less than a few seconds and now all I see is paper. The image of paper fluttering to the ground. Paper that symbolizes years of work, people’s lives, people’s deaths. All that in the fluttering paper.
I remember getting on the freeway and driving by Camp Pendleton where Matt was stationed at the time. Things were incredibly busy for so early. The day prior we had been on base and everything seemed so calm – but not that morning. Life had changed literally over night.
After clearing the base, which spans about 20 miles of north-bound freeway in which I didn’t receive a cell signal, there were already three voicemails waiting for me. Two were from my father begging me not to go to work. “There are missing airplanes and they are heading for the west coast. Please, Rachel, don’t go to work. Go home.” Heading into my office, which was on the 30th floor of a downtown highrise, I realized that in the 20-some-odd years that I had been alive, I had never heard the sort of panic and genuine fear in my father’s voice as I did in those two voicemails. The third voicemail was Matt, also asking me to not go into work. Without another thought, I changed my path.
Moments later the second tower fell. I remember looking around at the people on the freeway with me – tears rolling down so many of the faces. Faces of complete strangers, but, somehow I felt their pain. There were people parked on the side of the road – heads on the steering wheel – bodies shaking with sobs. Not once that morning, in rush-hour Los Angeles traffic, did I hear a single horn or see an aggressive driver. It was as if we were all mourning together – not only as Americans, but as human beings.
By the time I got home, the fourth plane had given up its fight over Pennsylvania. I spent the rest of the day, like so many people around the country, watching the television as news unfolded and cried. The sorrow and fear almost palpable.
Life as we knew it had changed.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” That day, we faced fear in the face. And the thing we didn’t know if we could do or not? Survive.
There is no doubt that the images and sounds from that day will haunt for a lifetime. At the same time, I wish that some of the brilliance in human nature that surfaced that day and the days immediately following to be resurrected. For a brief moment, we looked at each other, truly, as human beings. The racial and socio-economic walls were translucent. We were reminded through the tragedy that we are, at the core, always connected. I was driving into work today and I heard a bazillion car horns, middle fingers extended and people cutting off people on the roads.
In so many detailed ways we remember, but, in some more important ways we have forgotten. To honor those lost, we, at the very least should try and remember the simple yet powerful union that connects us all. In the days that followed September 11, 2001, I heard a young rabbi say the following, “It will take time and energy to be healed from this most tragic community wound. For the families of the victims there will be only grief and despair. For us as a community there can be healing... by helping those who suffer and are in pain.”
Thank you for letting me share my story.
-Rachel
Marine Matt answered the phone, jumped out of bed and immediately turned on the television. No words were spoken on his behalf.
There is was. At first I couldn’t, in my half-slumber, comprehend what it was. Smoke was billowing out of a building. I scrambled out of bed to get a closer look and turn up the volume. Matt was already on the phone to someone. I was listening to the reporter. A plane had flown into the World Trade Center? I still didn’t understand. How does a plane hit a building? It was chaos. People running, staring, screaming, pointing.
Within minutes we saw it. It was a second one. We watched, helpless and terrified. It wasn’t really happening. It couldn’t be. I felt the blood drain from my face and a nauseous feeling in my stomach. Matt yelled something – I think – I couldn’t hear him really, with all of my senses magnetized to what was appearing before me, 3,000 miles away, on a television. We both slumped onto the ground beside the bed. We stayed there for a while – I remember sobbing, feeling this overwhelming sense of sadness knowing what we had just witnessed. There was so much smoke. The looks on the people’s faces – ones coming out of the buildings, ones going into the buildings, ones on the ground looking up – always up. Did they know, in those moments, that it was going to be the last time they would look upwards and see the broken jewel?
I must have sat there for a while, because when I reached for Matt, I realized that he was actually standing on the other side of me now. I looked up –I saw panic. I think I knew then, that nothing would be the same.
A lot of people were talking on the television. The chaos on the streets had invaded the television screens. To this day, I don’t remember what they were saying or even who was saying what. Something about more planes. It was the images. But then they were talking louder. There was movement on the television. Where were they now? There’s another building. More smoke. Another gaping hole. What is that? “Dear God, it’s D.C. “ Where was Matt? How was this happening? “Those people. All those people.” I heard my own voice. Matt was standing beside me. This time he was fully dressed in his fatigues. I had seen him in those almost every other day, but, it wasn’t until that morning that I really saw him.
My phone rings. It’s my Mom. Was I awake? Did I have my tv on? I tell her I’m leaving San Diego and heading back up to LA for work. I’ll call her when I get to work. I tell her I love her and hang up. Never before had I so desperately wanted to be with her.
I turn around. Someone is screaming on the television. Something is crumpling into an enormous plume of dust. It can’t be the building. Buildings don’t just fall. Who is that yelling? It’s me. It took less than a few seconds and now all I see is paper. The image of paper fluttering to the ground. Paper that symbolizes years of work, people’s lives, people’s deaths. All that in the fluttering paper.
I remember getting on the freeway and driving by Camp Pendleton where Matt was stationed at the time. Things were incredibly busy for so early. The day prior we had been on base and everything seemed so calm – but not that morning. Life had changed literally over night.
After clearing the base, which spans about 20 miles of north-bound freeway in which I didn’t receive a cell signal, there were already three voicemails waiting for me. Two were from my father begging me not to go to work. “There are missing airplanes and they are heading for the west coast. Please, Rachel, don’t go to work. Go home.” Heading into my office, which was on the 30th floor of a downtown highrise, I realized that in the 20-some-odd years that I had been alive, I had never heard the sort of panic and genuine fear in my father’s voice as I did in those two voicemails. The third voicemail was Matt, also asking me to not go into work. Without another thought, I changed my path.
Moments later the second tower fell. I remember looking around at the people on the freeway with me – tears rolling down so many of the faces. Faces of complete strangers, but, somehow I felt their pain. There were people parked on the side of the road – heads on the steering wheel – bodies shaking with sobs. Not once that morning, in rush-hour Los Angeles traffic, did I hear a single horn or see an aggressive driver. It was as if we were all mourning together – not only as Americans, but as human beings.
By the time I got home, the fourth plane had given up its fight over Pennsylvania. I spent the rest of the day, like so many people around the country, watching the television as news unfolded and cried. The sorrow and fear almost palpable.
Life as we knew it had changed.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” That day, we faced fear in the face. And the thing we didn’t know if we could do or not? Survive.
There is no doubt that the images and sounds from that day will haunt for a lifetime. At the same time, I wish that some of the brilliance in human nature that surfaced that day and the days immediately following to be resurrected. For a brief moment, we looked at each other, truly, as human beings. The racial and socio-economic walls were translucent. We were reminded through the tragedy that we are, at the core, always connected. I was driving into work today and I heard a bazillion car horns, middle fingers extended and people cutting off people on the roads.
In so many detailed ways we remember, but, in some more important ways we have forgotten. To honor those lost, we, at the very least should try and remember the simple yet powerful union that connects us all. In the days that followed September 11, 2001, I heard a young rabbi say the following, “It will take time and energy to be healed from this most tragic community wound. For the families of the victims there will be only grief and despair. For us as a community there can be healing... by helping those who suffer and are in pain.”
Thank you for letting me share my story.
-Rachel
posted by Rach2LA @ 5:18 PM
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